Some would say this is what happens when you make a Mexican genre film without Santo. Actually, there is neither any "lucha libre" or "monstruos" in the film at all. The title suggests that it might be a Mexican answer to an Italian giallo, but it's a more of a staid domestic thriller that takes awhile to get started but isn't really that bad if your expectations aren't too high. The lead is Maribel Guardia, a former Miss Costa Rica and still a big TV star and tabloid attraction in Mexico today well into her 40's. She's at the height of her beauty here (and a lot less annoying than she is on television). She plays a kept woman whose oafish husband is insanely jealous of her even leaving their penthouse apartment. Aside from an occasional shopping trip, she mostly just sunbathes topless, reads horoscopes, works out in her g-string spandex, models lingerie in the mirror (thus the title), and takes a lot of long, hot showers. She meets a man on a shopping trip and nearly has an affair, but decides to stay loyal to her husband and remain at home. Bad idea--because her upstairs neighbor is a psychopath with a hair fetish. And with her phone dead and a loud party going in the apartments below she winds up trapped in her penthouse with this madman.
Viewers unfamiliar with the domestic relationships of the Mexican upper classes or with Mexican cinema in general might be a little puzzled by this film, but it is interesting and unusual both as Mexican film and a foreign release. While the American horror and thrillers often "punish" promiscuous characters, the heroine here puts herself in danger because she does NOT take advantage of an opportunity to cheat on her loutish husband(and it's made pretty clear that he would cheat on her if he had chance). The husband is actually a comical buffoon who spends most of the movie trying to get to the airport to catch a plane for a make-or-break career meeting. Meanwhile, there are three single party girls living below her (very atypical in Mexico even today). In your typical horror/thriller they would be fodder for gratuitous nudity and the killer's the knife, but nothing really happens to them. The same is not true of the heroine's sassy young maid though who, despite living at home with her strict parents, has no qualms about enthusiastically stripping off her panties and sitting on the killer's lap (even though he's much more interested in her hair). There's an unusual social message here, even though it's not completely clear what it is.
This is by no means a great movie. It really drags at times--there is a definite lack of violence and some may find the cheesecake nudity a little tame. The young maid role is also another unfortunate example of the "Paz Vega syndrome" (see the recent movie "Spanglish") as it is filled by the kind of incredibly sexy actress who would NEVER be working as a maid in any country, and this makes the scene where she throws herself at the truly unattractive, middle-age killer even more laughably implausible. The ending is kind strange and abrupt too. Still if you want to see something different. . .
